Champions
by Amicus Cordis
Summary: He took her brother out of the arena, but it feels like he's shoving her into it. Season 2 oneshot.


It first struck him in training. Lance's and Hunk's guns had been set to stun, the voltage on Pidge's bayard lowered to a light sting. Keith's sword didn't have a less dangerous form, so he forewent it altogether. The organized fight dissolved in minutes, when Lance's childish jeers had Keith chasing him in laps around the training deck **.** And Shiro remembered hot afternoons when he was a young teen, whenever a little Keith was having a particularly bad day and Shiro would prod him with water guns until the boy chased him around the backyard, burning out all the dangerous energy before their foster parents could get home and a fight break out.

Pidge maintained seriousness the longest, though for even her the objective changed from disarming Hunk to clambering onto his shoulders, removing his helmet, and grinding her knuckles into his head until he cried mercy. Keith was still pursuing Lance, just slow enough that Lance could get away but sticking close enough that he could never assume he was safe, instead squawking and shooting rapidly behind him as he pranced ungracefully around the room. Hunk watched them a moment, then tilted his head back to look up at Pidge. "Hey, you thinking what I'm thinking?"

She wasn't, but after a whispered explanation, and his reassurances when she said, "Don't we need a pool?" she sported a grin. As one they yelled, "Chicken fight!" and charged to the red and blue paladins.

Lance froze, staring wide eyed at the impending green and yellow monster. Keith ran into him. He had only a moment to look uncomfortable – he clearly had not planned on what to do when he actually caught up with Lance – before Lance yanked on Keith's arms to pull him onto his back. "Get on my shoulders!"

"What?" Keith asked, mouth agape. After more jostling from Lance, however, he saw their doom charging toward them, and scrambled onto Lance's shoulders. Lance teetered and stumbled, but gained his footing just as Hunk and Pidge arrived.

Pidge didn't have Keith's strength, but she had a stronger foundation in Hunk than Keith did in Lance. Shiro knew he should have stepped in, because they were soldiers, they had to be prepared for actual combat. But each laugh and immature taunt stopped him. The fight lasted two minutes without a winner before Allura sternly called from the observation deck, because they were supposed to be training to fight Zarkon! While Pidge looked up at the princess, Keith grabbed her calves and flipped her backward off of Hunk, crying, "Ha!" with Lance. Then Hunk shoved them both over.

They were well adjusted to living in a space war. Certainly more than he had been when he had first been dragged far from Earth. Homesickness and soreness aside, their new life never seemed to take much a toll on them. Until Shiro realized Hunk couldn't remember parts of some of their missions. And though he grew quieter over their missions, expressing his worries less and less, Shiro always felt through their mental bond that they grew more and more.

The first mission Hunk would not be able to recall at all ended with him in a healing pod. Lance hovered by the pod for the three whole quintants it took for Hunk to recover, alternating between pacing in front of it and sitting with his head in his hands and tucked between his knees. Any time Shiro could see his face, his eyes were unfocused, offering Shiro flashes of cellmates deteriorating between matches. Lance only hosted some life when he told them how he and Hunk had been placed in a dorm together by chance, and when they got homesick the first night, Lance sneaked them into the mess hall to eat their sorrows, and ever since he had been dragging Hunk on any ridiculous adventure he could. When Hunk woke, they became roommates once again, as Shiro noticed Lance frequently going to his friend's quarters at night, not unlike Keith's own habit of bunking with Shiro when the rooms felt just a little too far apart.

At some point, Shiro asked Lance how old he and Hunk were. Seventeen, when they left Earth. A year younger than Keith. Possibly eighteen by then. Legal adults, and yet it felt so young.

Not long after, he had to give Lance tricks he had developed for dealing with flashbacks.

Some days, they were reminded that Voltron couldn't always win. They did destroy the Galra cruiser, but not before it destroyed the Eunasee. A single ion blast to end a civilization. The Galra commander tried to evade the paladins by way of an escape pod. Before Shiro could command Voltron to capture the pod, Pidge broke formation and shot it. The commander died instantly, but the vines grew anyway, impaling and protruding from what remained of his flesh.

That night, Shiro dreamed. He dreamed every night. Of running across the surface of Kerberos to escape a tractor beam but getting nowhere. Of collapsing into hysterics as he stared at a once fellow prisoner crumpled beneath him while audiences cheered his victory. Of Matt delirious and feverish from an infection in the leg Shiro had injured. But that night he dreamed of Commander Holt and Pidge. She was splattered with blood. Purple of Galra, crimson of human. Her open eyes were vacant. Shiro wasn't sure if she was alive or not, just knew Commander Holt wept as he cradled her, and finally looked to Shiro. He didn't say anything, but Shiro still heard the demand, for why he brought this child to the front lines instead of bringing her back home.

Keith's warmth at his side grounded him when he woke, but that didn't stop the shaking. He unwrapped Keith's arms from around him and stood from the bed, stumbled to the door. Pidge was fine. Of everyone on the team, next to maybe Keith, she could take care of herself best. She was probably in her hangar, neglecting sleep in true Holt fashion, and would squint at him from behind Matt's glasses and question why he was awake at such an ungodly varga. He could go back to sleep. He just had to see that she was okay.

She wasn't okay.

He heard the echoes of sobs and strained breaths before he could find her in the dark hangar. The fifteen year old was curled up against one of Green's front paws, illuminated by the laptop neglected on her legs as she swiped at her face with her sleeves. Shiro made his approach obvious, with loud steps and calling out to her, to not startle her into a worse panic. He took a knee next to her, intending to talk her through breathing, but she dove for his chest, laptop clattering to the floor beside them. She seldom initiated contact, but he wasn't surprised. Sometimes, in purple cells nursing fresh wounds, all Shiro had wanted was another human to touch. So he hugged her back and took exaggerated breaths for her to copy until her hyperventilation stopped.

"I'm a Jedi, y'know," she said, voice hoarse and choked. "Since we went to Olkarion, I can feel everything, like I have the Force. I was like Obi-Wan Kenobi today. 'I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly—'"

The sentence was never finished. Shiro held her tighter, rubbed her back softly, like he would do to Keith. She didn't try to use movie references to smooth over the rest of her thoughts – it hadn't helped. She didn't have many things to say, but unaccustomed to being open it took her almost an hour to say it all. She killed that commander and could not even call it self-defense, she was a murderer, but she didn't feel guilty, only guilty that she didn't feel guilty, but how could the Galra commit genocide without a thought when she could feel the fear of every single person, the Galra could kill her dad and Matt just as easily, they could kill her, she was going to die before she could find them, they were never going to go home.

Shiro could relate to many of her feelings, but it felt wrong to say that. So instead he told her some of the Garrison stories, like the Cheese Nips incident, or the saga of Matt repeatedly plastic wrapping Iverson's office door without anyone realizing it was him. When scratchy laughs could break through sobs, Pidge agreed to sleep. Reluctantly, since she told Shiro she was already sure what she would dream about.

Keith was sitting up on the bed when the door opened, a question of where Shiro had been on his lips, but it died when he saw Pidge step in behind him. The teens regarded each other warily, but Shiro just sat on the bed, and they did not question further. Keith scooted against the wall to make room.

As soon as Shiro laid down, Keith held onto him. Just as he had the night Shiro became the first person to ever tell Keith he wanted him to stay, as he had every night after Shiro got his acceptance letter until the day he left for the Garrison, as he had on an air mattress in the Holt living room the night before the Kerberos launch.

Pidge slept facing out, her back barely touching Shiro's side, but she clung to his left arm that she used as a pillow. A few tears dampened his sleeve before her breathing evened out and she likely entered the exact nightmares she had predicted.

He dreamt again, too. Not of Commander Holt this time, but Matt, with sentries about to drag him to his death in the arena. So Shiro snatched a weapon from the guard, ripped open Matt's leg, and saved him by screaming a thirst for blood. Then he took Pidge's arm and pulled her into the arena with him. The others were waiting for them.


End file.
